The Supreme court recently retained section 7 of the Aadhaar act.
What is the provision?
Section 7 states that central or state governments can make possession of an Aadhaar number mandatory for receipt of subsidies, benefits or services funded out of the Consolidated Fund of India.
An individual who has not been assigned an Aadhaar number, shall be offered an alternated viable means of identification till number is assigned to him/her.
The court retained this provision noting that it is aimed at offering benefits to the marginalised section and hence becomes an aspect of social justice.
What are the concerns?
As per the UIDAI statement, the 'failed percentage' of iris and finger authentication are 8.54% and 6%, respectively.
Since 2017, there have been at least 25 hunger deaths that can be traced to Aadhaar-related disruption in rations and pensions.
Though UIDAI has taken step to put in place an exemption mechanism to address disruption, there is little evidence of its implementation.
The no.of people (as % of total population) excluded from getting Aadhaar is small.
But it happens to be the most vulnerable like bed-ridden old persons, victims of accidents, people with visual disabilities, etc.
An RTI response shows that 99.97% of those who got Aadhaar numbers did so on the basis of existing IDs.
Hence it clears the misconception that aadhaar is the only (or first) ID for millions of Indians to receive government benefits.
Also, each government programme has its own eligibility criterion to include or exclude people.
For instance, even in the PDS, there are State-specific inclusion/exclusion criteria and targeted/universalised PDS.
Now, after Aadhar, beneficiaries under the state-specific list have to link their aadhar number to remain eligible for PDS.
With Aadhaar being made compulsory, it has become necessary but not sufficient to get welfare.
The exclusion errors under PDS remains to be addressed.
Identity frauds where the welfare rolls in India included some ghost beneficiaries.
Quantity frauds, where a beneficiary is sold less than his/her entitlement, but signs off on the full amount also continued.
A rogue dealer can force the beneficiary to biometrically authenticate a lower purchase than what he/she was entitled to.
But the recent independent surveys and government data are beginning to suggest that it wasn’t the main form of corruption.
For instance, linking Aadhaar cards with the PDS in Odisha led to the discovery of only 0.3% duplicates.
Hence the government should ensure that no beneficiary is left out and every deserving person be included in the list of beneficiaries.
